Friday 16 May 2025
Welcome to the Barrow Hills Bulletin, your weekly newsletter with a snapshot of life at School.
Message From the Head 
Dear Parents
The children out and about at Sayers Croft (Year 4) and in Snowdonia (Year 6) have had a wonderful time. A particularly lovely aspect to share is the feedback we’ve received from locals and professionals working with our pupils — words like kind, considerate, polite, and resilient have all come my way this week. It’s so pleasing to hear.
In our drive for better presentation and care, I’ve been scooping up blazers left casually about the playgrounds — collecting rain, woodland insects, and so on! Pupils will need to come to me to retrieve them over the next couple of weeks… and expect a raised eyebrow. We can certainly get better at this!
As a gesture of positive encouragement, we are giving all children in Prep a new fountain or gel pen — part of our focus on taking pride in both one’s appearance and the presentation of one’s work as we head towards the half term.
Thank you to all the parents who have come to support the cricket and athletics fixtures — the season is going well, with some lucky breaks in the weather. The BHCC ran a fantastic Quiz Night last week, raising £600 for the School. Although the teachers won (again!), their victory was not without controversy — particularly the generous size of the teacher teams.
Enjoy the weekend.
Mr Towers, Head
News from Upper Prep
The weather has been glorious this week and the children in Year 7 and Year 8 have certainly made the most of their time outside. It has been great to see them all playing together on the astro or the adventure in the playground.
On Monday, I delivered a workshop called Coping with Exam Anxiety. This was designed to help the children prepare for their forthcoming exams without becoming worried or overwhelmed. We looked at healthy eating and exercise as well creating a revision timetable by breaking topics into small chunks to make them more manageable. I also reminded the children that there are plenty of past papers and revision materials in the Revision Google Classroom. We discussed different revision techniques like making notes, devising quizzes, making flashcards and watching short video clips. Little and often is the key! There will be another revision workshop next week when Mr Behan will be helping the children with their science revision.
Tuesday saw a visit from some of our School Governors. They dropped into a Year 8 science lesson, as well as a Year 7 English lesson and a Year 7 art lesson. I was so impressed with the mature way the children spoke to the adults and answered their questions, as well as the focused way they engaged in their learning.
On Friday, some of the children from Upper Prep participated in the Hurst Athletics Competition. Sixteen schools competed. Well done to:
Hugo, Reuben, Toby, Philip, Alfie, George P, Charlie, James, George J and Fletcher.
I know you will have all done Barrow Hills proud!
Finally, a huge good luck to Mateo, Year 7, who is competing in the England National Hockey Tournament in Nottingham this weekend, with Guildford Hockey Club. Mateo, we wish you every success and we look forward to hearing all about it!
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Mrs Mason, Head of Upper Prep
News from Prep
It’s been a little quieter than usual in the Prep Department this week, with both Year 4 and Year 6 away on their residential trips.
Our Year 4 children set off on their first ever overnight school adventure, spending three days at Sayers Croft. They threw themselves enthusiastically into a wide range of outdoor activities, including raft building, bouldering, and orienteering. For many, it was their first experience of staying away from home with school, and they rose to the challenge with great spirit and resilience.
Meanwhile, Year 6 ventured further afield for a five-day residential in Snowdonia, where they tackled mountain walks, explored underground caverns, and even braved the exhilarating zip line! It was a truly action-packed week that pushed them out of their comfort zones and into new realms of confidence and teamwork.
Residentials like these are invaluable in helping children develop independence and self-belief. With the guidance and encouragement of their teachers, they discover joy in new experiences, forge lasting friendships, and build a deeper curiosity about the world around them. We hope they all returned home with stories to tell, a sense of achievement, and memories they’ll treasure. A heartfelt thank you to the dedicated staff team – Mrs Burnett, Mr Pretorius, Mr King, Mrs Wallace, Mrs James and Mr Unwin – for accompanying the children and ensuring the trips ran smoothly, safely, and with plenty of fun along the way.
Back at school, Tuesday saw our Year 5 pupils take part in a fantastic Science and STEM Workshop, delivered in partnership with Charterhouse. Led by Charterhouse staff and a group of enthusiastic Year 12 pupils, our children explored exciting hands-on experiments and STEM challenges focused on engineering principles and problem-solving tasks. The room buzzed with creativity, innovation, and curiosity. We’re fortunate to enjoy such strong and supportive links with our local senior schools, and we are very grateful to Mr Behan, Mr Dickinson, Ms Schreuder and all the Charterhouse pupils for running such a dynamic and inspiring session.
Also this week, a group of Year 5 boys travelled to Hurstpierpoint College to take part in an athletics afternoon. It was a fantastic opportunity to enjoy competitive sport in a new environment, and I’m sure they represented Barrow Hills with pride, giving their all on the track and field. We always remind our pupils that whether they win or lose, it is their attitude, effort, and sportsmanship that truly defines success.
As we look ahead to our final week before the half term break, it seems the sunshine is here to stay (fingers crossed!). Please remember to send your children in with a sunhat and a named bottle of sun cream, and ensure it’s applied before the school day begins.
Wishing you all a restful and sunny weekend.
Miss Tyrell, Head of Pre-Prep
News from Pre-Prep
Reception entertained us all yesterday morning as they performed their very first school assembly to parents, Pre-Prep children and staff including Mr Towers. The theme was based on minibeasts and after video footage of our Reception children in the garden, telling us their favourite minibeast, we listened to the well loved story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They used their art work of different foods the hungry caterpillar munched his way through to show us as they each delivered their line to their audience. Mrs Davies accompanied Reception on the keyboard as they sang a wonderfully upbeat song to finish. Well done Reception – a tremendous performance.
The minibeast theme has woven well across all of EYFS this week with Backyard Bugs visiting us on Monday. The children explored different bugs including a Mexican red knee spider, giant stick insects and centipedes, a scorpion and Sally the bird eating tarantula! The children showed how intrigued they were by their visitors and they touched them and asked Richard and Ben lots of different questions too.
In the woods this week, Pre-Prep children have been focusing on nettles and learning how they are a vital part of the ecosystem, providing food and shelter for a wide range of wildlife. Mrs Wilson explained that they are also a highly nutritious food source and they each tried some nettle tea.
Year 2 enjoyed their first experience of spending their lunch time play on the astro and on the adventure playground over in Prep this week as they begin some of their transition activities to Year 3. As well as this they also had their lunch at a slightly later time today, again to get used to slightly later timings for lunch and lunch break. Head of Prep, Miss Tyrrell, also enjoyed reading to the children on Thursday lunchtime over in the Thomas More building, which she will do every week, again to introduce herself to the children and allow them to explore some of the Prep classrooms.
Well done to Ariella (Rec), Rocco (Year 1) and George W (Year 2) who received Work of the Week certificates in assembly this morning. Hugo (Rec) achieved his silver award for his house point collection so far this year, and Leo, Sophie, Anabella (Rec), Hannah and Ben (Year 2) have worked towards their gold award. Congratulations everyone.
Next Friday from 3:00pm, parents of Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are invited to their children’s classrooms to look at their exercise books. They are then welcome to sign out as they go off for the half term break. We look forward to seeing many of you there.
Have a lovely weekend, all of you.
Mrs Barnett, Head of Pre-Prep
School Notices
A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to our Lent Appeal. We are delighted to share that we raised a total of £1,565, surpassing our original target of £1,000 and even exceeding our revised goal of £1,500. The final boost came from the fantastic Year 6 cake sale. Shooting Stars Children’s Hospices have gratefully received the donation. Well done and thank you to all!
Message from the School Chaplain, Reverend James Radcliffe
For those who would like to gather, we are bringing together a Bridewell Parents & Guardians’ prayer meeting on Thursday 22nd May from 8:15 – 8:55am. Refreshments will be available at the start (or do use the delicious Picadilly café beforehand to get your preferred drink). Please meet at the new KES Reception between 8:00-8:10 to be signed in and the Chaplain will meet you there. If you intend to come, please let him know (48 hours beforehand) so catering requirements can be organized. Parents and guardians may alternatively join via ZOOM at the same time as the in-person meeting is taking place. The ZOOM details are below. If you have any further questions, please do get in touch: RadcliffeJ@kesw.org
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/82059637230?pwd=JkOdYTrqsV1xBr47MC1IKAumXeT5q4.1
Meeting ID: 820 5963 7230
Passcode: 9Xs02p
